That night, the air was choking with sulfur fumes and full of gritty particles, and Patrice warned that the buildup was reaching the critical point. White plumes from both Picchu and Garben, ominously rooted in a muted glow from peak and crater, were visible even against the dark sky, casting an eerie light over the settlement.
Drake Bonneau reported that he was safely down after a difficult flight. “Damn crate nearly shook apart, but nothing was damaged. None of the kids so much as bruised, but I don’t think any of them will develop a yen for flying. Hard landing, too, plowed a furrow when we overshot the mark. We’ll need the rest of the day to clear the site for the Parrakeet. Tell Fulmar to check the gyros and the stabilizing monitors. I’ll swear we had tunnel snakes in the Swallow’s.”
There was a constant stream of vehicles down to the harbor, as the bigger ships and barges were loaded with protesting animals prodded into stalls erected on deck. Crates of chickens, ducks, and geese were strapped wherever they could be attached, to be off-loaded at the Kahrain cove, safely out of the danger zone. With any luck, most of the livestock would be evacuated. Skimming over the harbor, Jim Tillek managed to be everywhere, encouraging and berating his crews.
By nightfall, Sean called a halt for dragonriders ferrying people and packages to the Kahrain cove. “I’m not risking tired dragons and riders,” he told Lilienkamp with some heat. “Too risky, and the dragons are just too young to be under this sort of stress.”
“Time, man, we don’t have time for niceties!” Joel replied angrily.
You handle the exodus, Joel, I’ll handle my dragons. The riders will work until they drop, but it’s bloody stupid to push young dragons! Not while I can prevent it.”
Joel gave him an angry, frustrated glare. The dragons had been immensely useful, but he also knew better than to put them at risk. He gunned the sled away, perched behind the console like a small, ash covered statue.
Sean and the other riders did work until they dropped. Each dragon then curled protectively about his rider as they slept. No one had time to notice that there were few dragonets about.
Then, all too soon, Joel was there again, exhorting them from the air, and they rejoined the Herculean efforts of the people around them.
Suddenly, the klaxon sounded a piercing triple blast. All activity ceased for the message that followed.
“She’s going to blow!” Patrice’s almost triumphant shout echoed throughout Landing.
Every head turned toward Garben, its peak outlined by the eerie luminosity from its crater.
“Launch the Parrakeet!” Ongola’s stentorian voice broke the awed, stunned silence.
The engines of the shuttle were drowned by the rumbling earth and an ear-splitting roar of tremendous power as the volcano erupted. The attentive stance of observers broke as people scrambled to complete tasks at hand, shouting to one another above the noise. Later, those who watched the peak fracture and the red-hot molten lava begin to ooze from the break said that everything appeared to happen in slow motion. They saw the fissures in the crater outlined by orange-red, saw the pieces blowing out of the lip, even saw some of the projectiles lifting out of the volcano and could track their dizzying trajectory. Others averred that it all happened too fast to be sure of details.
Bright red tongues of lava rolled ominously up and over the blasted lip of Garben, one flow traveling at an astonishing rate directly toward the western most buildings of Landing.
In that dawn hour, the wind had dropped, saving much of the eastern section of Landing from the worst of the shower of smaller rocks and hot ash. The larger, devastating projectiles that Patrice had feared did not appear. But the lava was sufficiently frightening a menace.
The Parrakeet, laden with irreplaceable equipment, pierced the western gloom, her engine blasts visible, if not audible, as she drove northwest and out of danger.
At the sound of the klaxon, the dolphins began to tow heavily laden small boats out of Monaco Bay, a flotilla of vessels not ordinarily suitable for any prolonged sea travel. The dolphins had assured humans that they would get their charges safely to the sheltered harbor beyond the first Kahrain peninsula. Maid and Mayflower, which were not fully loaded, left the harbor to wait outside the estimated fallout zone until they could return for the last of their cargoes. Jim, on board the Southern Cross, shepherded barges and luggers along the coast on their long journey to Seminole, from where they would make the final run north.
Sleds and skimmers streamed between Landing and Paradise River Hold as the nearest safe assembly point. Traffic there was chaotic, as vital supplies were kept available and loads were shunted to designated areas of the beach. Landing was being cleared of all that could be reused in the new northern hold.
Thick sulfur-smelling ash began to cover Landing’s buildings. Some of the lighter roofs collapsed under the load, and observers could hear the plastic groaning and shifting. The air was almost unbreathable with traces of chlorine. Everyone used the breathing masks without complaint.
By midafternoon, a haggard Joel Lilienkamp dropped his battered sled on the lee side of the tower beside Ongola’s. He waited a moment to gather enough strength to thumb open the comm unit.
“We’ve cleared all we can,” he said in gasps, his voice raspy from the acrid airborne fumes. “The donks are parked in the Catherine Caves until we can strip ‘em down for shipment. You can leave now, too.”
“We’re coming,” Ongola replied.
Moments later he appeared, slowly angling a heavy comm package on a grav unit past the door. Jake came next, similarly encumbered and Paul followed, guiding two more components.
“Need a hand?” Joel asked automatically, though the way he slumped at the console made it hard to believe that he had any more energy to spare.
“One more trip,” Ongola said when they had positioned the equipment in his sled. “Is your power pack up to a load?” he asked Joel.
“Yup. My last fresh unit.”
As Ongola and Jake went back into the tower, Paul went to the flagstaff and, with a bleak expression on his face, solemnly lowered the singed tatters of the colony’s flag. He made a ball of it, which he stuffed underneath the seat he took on the sled. He gave the supply master one long look. “Want me to drive, Joel?”
“I got you here, I’ll take you out!”
Paul dared not look back at the ruins of Landing, but as Joel veered east and then north in a wide sweep, the admiral saw that he wasn’t the only one with tears coursing down his cheeks.
A stiff nor’easterly wind kept the Kahrain cove clear of ash and the acrid taint of Garben’s eruption. The gray pall spread over the eastern horizon as the volcano continued to spew lava and quantities of ash. Patrice and a skeleton team remained to monitor the event after Landing was abandoned.
“We hunt this morning,” Sean said to the other riders.
They had found a quiet cove up the beach from the main evacuation camp. None of the dragons sprawled in the warm sun had a very good color, and privately Sean worried that their maturing strengths had been over taxed. He decided stoutly that there was nothing wrong that a good meal would not restore. He looked around for fire-lizards and swore under his breath.” Damn them! We need all we’ve got. Four queens and ten bronzes can’t possibly catch enough packtail to feed eighteen dragons! Surely they’ve seen volcanoes erupt before.
“Not on top of them,” Alianne Zulueta replied. “I couldn’t reassure mine. They just left!”
“Red meat would be better than fish – more iron,” David Catarel suggested, his eyes on his pale bronze Polenth. “There’s sheep here.”